Manifestation de Casseroles

Génial! "Manifestation de casseroles sur la rue Fabre, le 19 mai 2012. C'est tous les jours, partout, à 20h." Make a musical clanging sound! Spreading through Montreal neighbourhoods to support the 2012 Quebec student strikes. Zut alors!

On This Day

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech on 3 April 1968 at at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee.

The next day he was assassinated.

The puppeteers are starting to squrm

Chris Wallace interviews Mitch McConnell about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director.

WALLACE: What’s your problem with an agency that would protect consumers from mortgage lenders, from debt collectors and student lenders?
MCCONNELL: Yes, here’s the problem: this new agency answers to no one, absolutely no one — another unelected czar. We’ve got a bunch of those in the White House. We don’t need any more of them. And the only way we can incentivize the administration to change this agency which isn’t subject to oversight by Congress, doesn’t get its money from Congress, answers to literally to no one — it’s one individual who could bring down the banking system in this country if he chose to, has unlimited power. No one has that kind of power.

I doubt Wallace corrected McConnell -- such is the state of our lazy MSM; Talking Points Memo did. The CFBP was created by congress, which stipulated that it have a director. TPM goes on to say

...[I]t’s simply a lie to say that the CFPB director has unlimited power and is subject to no oversight. As we explained last week, the CFPB, unlike any of the other federal financial system regulators, can have it’s rules struck down by a vote of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a panel composed of the heads of the bank regulatory agencies, the Treasury Secretary, and the Federal Reserve Chairman. No other financial regulator is subject to this sort of check. Theoretically, the FSOC could veto each and every rule that the CFPB makes.

BURLINGTON SOLIDARITY RALLY

On Sunday, October 2, over 150 Vermonters will stand in solidarity with those who have been tirelessly occupying Wall St. to protest corporate greed. Please join!

Design: Liza Cowan/CowanDesign and owner of small equals. Illustration from Leslie’s Illustrated Magazine, 1874 depicting the Tompkins Square Riot.

Our Cowardly President

To dump Elizabeth Warren, the most qualified, most motivated and most articulate candidate for the directorship of the Consumer Financial Regulatory Bureau is an act of political cowardliness by President Obama and a boon to anti-consumer Republicans and their corporate paymasters in Wall Street.

Elizabeth Warren apparently is just too good, too smart, and too able to arouse the just concerns of millions of American families about the need to put the law-and-order wood to the corporate criminals, defrauders and reckless speculators with the savings and pensions of millions of Americans.

President Obama should realize that his back-of-the-hand attitude to his liberal and progressive supporters – who sent him to the White House – can have consequences. He believes they have no where to go. But they do. They can stay home in 2012, as so many did in 2010 to the detriment of the Democrats and many Congressional races.

[Nader - "Dumping Elizabeth Warren" - CounterPunch]

People are determined to save Gazan lives

From Press TV

The next Freedom Flotilla will be much bigger than the first one, the head of a non-governmental organization says.

Yasser Qashlaq, the director of the Free Palestine Movement, said on Thursday that up to 50 ships could join the Freedom Flotilla II, the International Middle East Media Center reported.

Meanwhile, the movement, in cooperation with Reporters Without Borders, is organizing a new mission to send educational supplies to the children of the besieged Palestinian territory. Qashlaq said a ship would depart from Lebanon within a week.

Yeah, people are determined and stand in solidarity, but not if the Quisling Abbas can help it.

R.I.P. Burlington's Spirit of Generosity

Yesterday, I wrote about the proposed ordinance changes against street people and Burlington's Phoenix House. Here's my comment on the Blurt/Seven Days post:

"I've said it before to my friends here (and I'll say it again): Burlington is a small town pushing hard to be a city. And if you read all the accolades Burlington has received in the PR "Best of..." categories, you'd think we were the most hospitable, liveable place in North America! We're not! As I read the whining comments on here, hardness of heart comes to mind. You've lost that spirit of generosity that has made Vermont great!

"When I lived in London ten years ago, I might have been irritated by the constant panhandlers, but recognised that this is part of life in a big city. Actually, I stopped frequently outside my neighbourhood tube station and talked with the people who sat there ("Spare some change, sir?") and heard their stories. Turns out the majority were human! Fancy that! And several friends I made had once been among the working class, laid off unemployed (one pay-check away from poverty), and were struggling to find food for their own families. (With the new ConDem government it will get worse!)

"The memo accompanying this resolution was written by police chief Schirling. He heads up that same force that sends deputy officers as department liaisons to NPA meetings, encouraging citizens to act as block wardens and report on citizens' "undesirable" activities in neighbourhoods. So much for friendly, community policing.

"I'm actually more concerned about the despicable NIMBY resolution against Phoenix House. "The Other America" is alive right in our own backyard.

Highly Recommended: "We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda"

This is one fucking helluva program I recommend watching. Yeah, call me passionate.

Earlier this month, PBS Talk Show Host Tavis Smiley hosted african american leaders for a forum titled, "We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda." Panelists included, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), Cornel West and Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan. Great program: watch the rebroadcast here.

Food for Thought on this First Sunday of Advent

The Bush Administration called them "nutritional aid." On its front page today, the New York times reports at length on the growing number of people on food stamps and the stigma of relying on them for groceries has faded.

Episcopal Cafe, however, links to another story in the Houston Chronicle about a Houston attorney who wants to close The Beacon, a program sponsored by Christ Church Cathedral, which helps the homeless in the city center.

According to The Beacon's web site, the four-day-a-week service "[provides] hot meals, clothing, private shower and lavatory facilities, laundry services, and case management to people living on the streets of Houston," all in hopes of eventually getting people off the street.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Arthur's suit is based the simple fact that since The Beacon came on the scene, his business has been compromised.

“What started as a good and noble idea has instead grown and turned into a danger to the health and safety of others in the adjacent areas,” the suit states. “The individuals sing, play music, dance, fight and (do) other undesirable activities. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, when The Beacon's operation is closed, things are once again quiet and pleasant.”

Cathedral leadership remains clear-eyed.

“The Cathedral is engaged in the business of feeding the hungry and caring for the poor, as it has been for 170 years,” [Christ Church Cathedral Dean Joe] Reynolds said. “Any time you do that, there are going to be challenges involved. We try to address those challenges. We have a stake in being good neighbors in ways that are consistent with the mission we have as a Christian community.”

....

“This is nothing new... We don't want to go about it in a cavalier way, but the Christian community has been in the business of feeding the hungry for 2,000 years. We're not going to stop.”

Chavez vs Obama

Obama Invests in Banksters, Chavez Invests in Food and Jobs.

A diary at FDL/Oxdown Gazette by Justinajustice, Saturday May 9, 2009

As an American living in Venezuela, I read the news that the Obama administration is funneling several trillion dollars of taxpayer's money into the U.S. biggest financial institutions. I see that millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their homes, their health insurance and lining up at charity foodbanks to get food. What good is that government money doing for the vast majority of Americans?

In contrast, here in Venezuela, unemployment decreased last quarter, Chavez increased the minimum wage, already the highest in South America, by 20% on May 1st, and the government is taking strong measures to insure that everyone has their basic needs met.

Living in Venezuela, I now directly benefit from policies of the Chavez government: I can go to a doctor, at no cost, whenever I need to and I can purchase basic foodstuffs at very low cost at the government-run "Mercals" in my neighborhood.

This week at my local Mercal, I purchased a kilo (2.2 lbs) of rice, a kilo of sugar, a half kilo of coffee, a kilo of powdered milk and two quarts of yogurt, and a two foot loaf of bread for about $6.00 U.S. In my home state of Hawaii, that $6.00 would not have paid for the milk, let alone anything else.

Under the Chavez government's drafted Constitution, passed by a national referendum in 2000, citizens have a constitutional right to adequate nutrition. The government insures this right by controlling the cost of basic foodstuffs and providing extremely low cost government markets (Mercals) such as the one I visited this week, as well as restaurants (Comedores) where an ample three course meal (soup, entre, dessert) and beverage can be obtained for about $2.00.

While Obama's economic team of Geithner and Summers respond to the current economic crisis, which their deregulation efforts helped to create, by funneling several trillion dollars of tax payer funds to the big financial institutions to insure their continued operation, Venezuela, although hit hard by the reduction in oil prices from $150 a barrel to circa $50 a barrel, has reacted in a more directly productive fashion for its citizens.

Chavez has recently redoubled efforts to insure that the prices and availability of basic food stuffs, whose prices are regulated by the government, are strictly enforced. Companies who attempt to avoid price regulation by "enriching their products to remove them from the realm of price controls, are being warned that they face expropriation by the government if they deliberately avoid price controls. This is not mere idle talk.

Chavez recently sent soldiers into the factories of Arroz Primor, a rice-producing subsidiary of the huge Polar company, after it was discovered that factory was under-producing rice by thousands of tons a month and producing flavored rice instead of basic rice in order to sell at a higher, un-regulated price.

Large companies, whose owners tend to support opposition efforts to dismantle the Chavez government, have frequently held back the distribution of needed goods in order to create the appearance of shortages, in the attempt to foment anger against Chavez. Thus, last year, sugar, which Venezuela produces in abundance, was missing from the stores for several weeks.

Previously, the Chavez government countered efforts to hold back food from the markets by using its massive oil profits to purchase foodstuffs from neighboring countries. With the enormous reduction in oil prices, importing food has become a luxury. Now companies, such as Polar, who deliberately under-produce goods or who seek to avoid controls by "enriching" their products, face direct nationalization by the government.

In the past, the Venezuelan government paid hard cash to the owners of companies it nationalized at fair market value, but now President Chavez has announced that owners will be paid in government bonds rather than cash. This bond method of payment will not only protect the government's cash reserves in face of this world crisis, but also may provide an incentive to such owners to oppose efforts to de-stabilize the government. Such de-stabilization efforts, if successful, would reduce the value of their government bonds.

President Chavez has vowed that the world economic crisis and the reduction in the price of oil will not interfere with Venezuela's commitment to improve the living standards of its citizens.

Venezuela's latest government budget continues support for the provision of free medical, dental and eye care, for the literacy and high education programs, for the building of new homes and apartment to replace the decades old slums. It also calls for the reduction in government salaries and bonuses at the managerial level and the elimination of un-necessary travel, cars and similar extraneous expenses.

Looking ahead to the time when the world may not need Venezuela’s oil, Chavez’s government is investing in new businesses, such as a cell phone company which is producing a well-equipped cell phone that costs $14.00.

This past week President Chavez inaugurated a new generic drug production company which will reduce the need for expensive imports while allowing Venezuela to export cheap generics elsewhere in the world. Chavez anticipates creating several more such drug companies. In partnership with a Chinese company, Venezuela is now producing inexpensive desk-top and laptop computers which cost 40% less than equivalent imported models.

All of these new government created businesses are producing new jobs for Venezuelan workers while filling the real needs of its citizens.

Would that Obama would take those trillions of dollars he is funneling down the deep, dark hole of bankster’s pockets and use it to invest in job production and the real economy in America. We need government investment in improved infra-structure, renovated schools, alternative energy development, and the like.

It is time the U.S. put the taxpayers’ money to work filling human needs rather than creating more profits and bonuses for the ultra-wealthy.

STATE OF THE DREAM 2009

Dedrick Muhammad, co-author of the new report “State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression,” last Thursday on Democracy Now!:- "I’m glad to see that the government realizes that they have to play a role in stimulating the economy. I hope they see that their role is also to stimulate greater racial equality in this country."

ANOTHER BANK SCAM: PREYING ON THE UNEMPLOYED

GLH reports on how 30 states have signed deals with several major US banks (also being bailed out) to distribute unemployement benefits on debit cards, rather than by check. Fees apply for this "benefit," too. Vermont has not entered any official discussions with banks, but is reviewing unemployment debit card programs. Now's a good time to complain about this scam to the governor and your state legislators.

ARROGANCE FROM MONTPELIER

The Vermont Department of Labor's cavalier advice to unemployed Vermonters seeking departmental help to "keep trying" if no answer - hit redial, wait and try again - was brought to our attention last week.

A week later it is still the official policy of the department:

Try multiple times an hour versus once every few hours. Think of it like a radio contest and call multiple times. Hitting the "redial" button on your phone increases your chances of connecting as soon as a line becomes free

While Douglas and Obama policy makers piss on working class people, Michael Colby gives us much better advice.

SHADES OF THE 1930's

“This never happens — to take a company from the inside,” Ms. Mazon said. “But I’m fighting for my family, and we’re not going anywhere.”

This is encouraging. This kind of action can force the incoming administration to take a more radical action than it would like to.

In Factory Sit-In, an Anger Spread Wide

The above headline is from the MSM paper of record, which has not usually been keen on reporting labour issues in a favourable light.

And the workers' action received tacit approval from Obama.

At a news conference Sunday, President-elect Barack Obama said the company should follow through on its commitments to its workers.

“The workers who are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned,” Mr. Obama said, “I think they’re absolutely right and understand that what’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.”

Encouraging, mebbe. But I ain't getting my hopes up. CounterPunch Diary has an updated list of "Honeymoans from the Left".

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: 2008 IS JUST THE BEGINNING

USURY IS A SIN

Ann Pettifor, a political economist, writes in the Guardian about usury:

'And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

"And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." - Matthew 21:12-13.

Let us make no bones about it. This financial crisis is a major spiritual crisis. It is the crisis of a society that worships at the temples of consumption, and that has isolated and often abandoned millions of consumers now trapped on a treadmill of debt. It is the crisis of a society that values the capital gains of the rentier more highly than the rights of people to a home, or an education or health. It is the crisis of a society that idolises money above love, community, wellbeing and the sustainability of our planet. And it is a crisis, in my view, for faith organisations that have effectively colluded in this idolatry, by tolerating the sin of usury.

I define usury as the exalting of money values over human and environmental values; of creating money at no cost and lending at rates of interest intended to accumulate reserves of unearned income. Of reaping that which one did not sow.

Read all of it here.

HOW CAN YOU LOSE?

HERE'S a fascinating bit of downtown Burlington history from Greg Guma's MAVERICK MEDIA. It's part of a series of posts this month, Vermont: Prelude to a Revolution (Don't miss the YouTube clip at the bottom.)

Queen City: Finding the Weak Spot

“A $52 million commercial complex will be built in Burlington during the next five years, unless residents of the City strongly resist plans now being made by City and State officials. In bits and pieces, people will be urged to pay $8 million to help business and banking interests turn the Queen City into a regional center for tourism and entertainment.” -- Public Occurrence, Spring 1976

“What’s this shit?" The mayor barked, tossing a copy of the latest Public Occurrence on his desk. He’d already confiscated a pile left near the entrance to City Hall. Thousands more were circulating all over town and across Vermont. The same “call to action” was being printed in several community newspapers.

At the bottom of the back page, below an article headlined “Stop the South End Connector!” was my name. Gordie Paquette could barely believe it. Someone working in City Hall had attacked the biggest commercial project in city history. But I wasn’t a city employee. I was a contract worker being paid by a grant, and the advisory panel didn’t care about my off-the books activities.

I’d been coordinating research on “youth needs” for a few months, using sophisticated survey tools with more than a thousand kids and staff at the various schools and social service agencies. In the process I’d built some rapport with members of the Burlington Youth Council, the panel appointed to supervise the project. It was led by Vivian Hartigan, a savvy local matron with solid city and Party roots. She didn’t trust Gordie to do much about the problems but was determined to make him try.

Access to city records netted some useful information about local projects. I read the files and copied reports, feeding information to the activists. Despite the high stakes for the city no statement had been issued about the true scope of redevelopment. The politicians and planners were hoping to sneak it through, bit by bit, worried that if the general public saw what was really going on, before the pieces were all in place, there could be some resistance. Exactly.

After examining economic and planning data, and identifying various pieces of the Master Plan, I reached the conclusion that the South End Connector, a proposed access road to link the Interstate with downtown, was the lynchpin. It was the key incentive developers wanted, and could only be built if the city won approval for spending, probably by floating local bonds, to cover its share of construction. If the road was stopped, or at least questioned and delayed, other projects might be derailed or changed.

But my thoughts went farther. Step one was to change the local debate, convincing enough people that Burlington faced a series of related crises – housing, youth, employment, traffic, and commercial development. To do that meant finding ways to legitimize dissent through various local media and organizing tactics. It would also be necessary to create more media alternatives. Public Occurrence was just the first step. Step two was to connect the dots between issues, build links between special focus groups, and create new ones to deal with issues like the Connector, mall development, and suburban sprawl. It might take years, but in the end the City would have to respond. Finally, a new citywide organization would be necessary if we were going to split the Democratic Party’s base, motivate the disenfranchised, and win political power.

In short, I devised a Five-Year Plan to overturn the local power structure. For obvious reasons I kept most of the details private. Some friends already thought I was a bit unrealistic. But I did write down and share the basic strategy with a few close associates. Persuaded by the analysis they nevertheless doubted that it would work.

My wife came straight to the point. “Who’s going to become mayor? You?” she asked. I hadn’t actually thought about running yet, focused on creating the right conditions for rebellion. But why not? Was it so outrageous? “You’re really not electable,” she added, answering her own question. “Why?” I inquired.

“You’re just not white enough.” What she meant was that Vermont, even a city like Burlington, wouldn’t accept an ethnic “outsider” as a political leader. Especially not an olive-skinned newcomer with an “exotic” name.

She had a point. I wasn’t “mainstream,” and Vermont tended to elect either born-and-bred Vermonters or professional ex-urbanites like Phil Hoff, Tom Salmon, and Richard Snelling. But I could worry about that later. The task at hand was to frame the issues, legitimize the opposition, and peel off part of the dominant power’s base.

Gordie Paquette had no idea what I was thinking. He barely knew who I was, just some consultant brought in to appease a few locals about the kids. A report would be filed and promptly forgotten, he assumed. But he wasn’t about to let someone work in his building and criticize his agenda.

I’d prepared for this moment. The consulting gig wouldn’t last beyond the summer. There wasn’t much Gordie could do beyond bluster. But I could find out something – what made him tick, what he thought about what he was doing. Basically, I could size him up. Thus, I just ignored the bluster and spoke as if we were equals, just two guys shooting the bull. People were skeptical about his plans, I explained. They didn’t understand why he was ignoring local problems and planning to roll over for commercial developers.

His defense was a shock. “I have no choice,” he complained. If he didn’t back these public improvements some of the city’s biggest local merchants were threatening to relocate to the suburbs. It was blatant commercial blackmail. Williston, a nearby “bedroom” community with Interstate access, was destined to become a commercial center; an upstate New York mall chain called Pyramid was already eyeing property. The only way to “save” the city was to improve access and make downtown more attractive to developers, chains, and tourists, he said.

Gordon Paquette was supposedly a “strong mayor,” the reputed boss of the city for more than a decade. Yet he sounded powerless, weak. Almost whining, he protested that he was really a man of the people, but the people didn’t understand the stakes. I acted sympathetic but stood my ground. Meanwhile I thought: this guy can be beaten with the right campaign.

Part Seven of Prelude to a Revolution

Next: From City Hall to the Streets

Greg added this to his post: Where we are now

Thirty Years Later: Touring Burlington

NLRB refuses to negotiate with its workers

WORKERS INDEPENDENT NEWS: -
National Labor Relations Board is Refusing To Negotiate With Its Employee Union - 08/23/07 - An ironic battle between the NLRB and the NLRBU union continues to unfold... Last week members of the union representing workers for the National labor Relations Board began calls for the resignation of NLRB General Counsel, Ronald Meisburg. Meisburg has refused to bargain with the union representing 1000 NLRB employees. This week the NLRBU received support in the form of an unfair labor practice complaint filed by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The FLRA serves a similar function as the NLRB as it governs labor relations between the Federal government and employees. In the complaint the FLRA alleges that the NLRB has violated federal labor law by not bargaining with the FLRA certified union.

The Suicide of Capitalism

Texas Observer The Suicide of Capitalism by Molly Ivins 28 July 2006 (yes, last summer) - -

It seems to me that we’ve seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism—it will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom?

It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair—“justice for all” seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the “lottery of life” in this country in ways we don’t even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won’t see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it’s starting to affect us already.

Read the rest of "The Suicide of Capitalism"...

And not so much as an antidote, rather, a counter to the manipulation of our greed and fears - accepting things as they are, go:read -- Bill Carroll's sermon for last Sunday.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Seminarian and Witness for Civil Rights, 14 August 1965

Here are the readings appointed for the Feast of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Seminarian and Witness for Civil Rights.

Speaking to the Soul: Like the early Christian witness, Daniels could write, “We are beginning to see as we never saw before that we are truly in the world and yet ultimately not of it.” He was sickened by signs saying “White Only,” but uncomfortable as well with making too “smart” an answer to a segregationist. He wrote: “We are beginning to believe deeply in original sin—theirs and ours.”

In the midst of this ambiguity, the reality of hatred remained, along with the possibility of death. Shortly after writing his report, Daniels was struck down by a supremacist’s bullet. An instinctive reaction led Daniels to throw himself in front of a young black woman when a white man aimed a rifle at her. Yet instincts are the product of prayer and a commitment to justice made long before the event. Daniels seems to have understood that his commitment might require the highest price. He also knew that the way of life can conquer the powers of death. He had written not long before: “A crooked man climbed a crooked tree on a crooked hill. Somewhere, in the mists of the past, a tenor sang of valleys lifted up and hills made low. Death at the heart of life, and life in the midst of death. The tree of life is indeed a Cross.”